There are some things that can never be erased from memory no matter how hard you try. Back in January my husband Raegan and I were driving around to kill some time before church. We just so happened to be having one of those intense marital discussions, when upon rounding a corner we witness a man’s fleshy backside, only a glimpse before he quickly pulled up his pants. He was apparently taking a leak on his fence. If I could scrub clean my visual memory I would. Disturbing yet pitiful, the vision stopped our conversation in its tracks. Here it was January, the cold gloom that hits after the forced joy over the holidays. Of which this guy’s frumpy pinks typified the general mood of post holiday blues, sad, despairing, like the moment you open your credit card bill.  Let’s face it, most backsides leave much to be desired, comical at best. Time will always have the last laugh and we all end up wilted and withered like two week old lettuce, our own reminder that we indeed are on the way out, that we are mortal. 


After the Fall God handed cover-ups to everyone. We blew it, so now the fig leaf is required. The ugly side of humanity is better left in the dark, clothed, securely fastened by way of zipper or buttons, or the shapeless Snuggie that comfortably hides everything under a lovable fleece sack. The unveiled horror capped our morning perfectly. 

We were discussing why it was we could not get through a day without bickering over something ridiculous. Over whose turn it was to wrestle our second unruly child, "Budget", into submission. Or why someone can’t throw away candy wrappers instead of stuffing them into the couch cushions to supposedly, “be picked up later.” Those cyclical arguments that keep going and going, a miserable Merry-Go-Round, blame and shame divvied out like carnival tickets to be tallied up later, declaring the Winner and the Loser.

That’s when it hit me like a pair of puckered buns, vulnerable and ugly- our fallenness exposed leaves not something, but everything to be desired. Somehow God actually loves us, so much he invites us off the Merry Go Round. He tore up the tally tickets of blame, wore the shame himself and let us off the hook. Alone we are incapable of change, miserable schemers out to win at any cost, (oh how I love to be Right). But up against the white canvas of Christ our “righteous” schemes show up like black blots that mar like violent scars. Sin. All fall short of the glory of God. So we repent, we get it. We get that we bring nothing to the table, and I mean NOTHING. And He takes our hand, our Rescuer and leads us off the cyclical death that leads to nowhere.